Big Adventure - Part 14

Well, everything – finally – is falling into place. This is what I had in mind when I made the 180 degree turn and moved here three months ago.

And now I can finally stop holding back on telling the truth, so as not to piss off Jacquie who was left with so much work over there – life is perfect here. That’s it. Perfect. The work is perfect. The sun and sand are perfect. The people are perfect. The food is perfect. Jacquie is perfect – but most of you already knew that.

I’m enjoying showing Jacquie around her new home. She says it’s nicer than I described. I’m admitting that I already knew that.

As Ja says, "Khun Jacquie sawie" = Jacquie beautiful !

Not surprisingly, we are not yet in our new place (you know, the one that will be ready October 1st) Now it will be completely ready for us to move in tomorrow (Tuesday the 17th) morning. We bought two lounge chairs this afternoon that we are sitting in right now at the beach, and tonight we will go buy some sheets, a coffee maker, etc. etc. It’s kind of fun – sort of just married honeymoon new home fun. I’ll spare you details.

Jacquie has now decided that she never wants to cook again, as long as we have Ja. Damn she can cook.

Sami is amazing. Yesterday I walked up to my office to get a drink out of the fridge. When I returned 30 seconds later, my dog was more excited to see me then he was at the Bangkok airport after three months. Every Thai person is afraid. The stares are incessant. Big in Thai is “Ooy”. We hear that a lot. “Ooy, ma see dam!!” “Big black dog!!” It’s funny, the girls in the bars have all stopped saying “Hello darling, how are you, where you go?” now that Jacquie and Sami are with me. But you should see them all staring at Sami. I have tried to explain to him that he can not have any money, and “No money, no honey”.

The security guard at an upscale resort nearby has as clearly as he could advised us, while pointing at Sami, “I fear, I fear!” I’ve decided we might go there for a swim in their pool some night, or to break into rooms or whatever – as long as we take Sami with us we’ve got the run of the place.

I am watching a beautiful sunset across the water with my dog at my feet and my beautiful wife beside me – and I feel utter peace. At least for this moment, I am successfully living in the moment. And it is good.

Jacquie has begun the long process of decompressing. She is as awe struck as I was over all of the inefficiencies and contradictions here, and she still wants to know what time it is. Eventually she will put away the mental Daytimer, but it takes a while.

We conducted an experiment Monday night. Just the dog and I went walking. Now we know that it was Jacquie, not Sami, that stopped the girls from speaking to me.

Sam barks at geckos. They don’t care.

Well, last night we were all ready to move in to our new apartment, and at about 7 pm the electricity went off. No A/C, so no sleep there. Back to my room. This morning at about 7 am it came back on. I’ve told our landlady (Jeet - the daughter I’ve been dealing with all along) that I think there is a timer somewhere, and got her phone number. So tonight at 7 pm when it went off again I called her, she sent electricians around and it’s back on. We get to spend our first night in our new home on Jacquie’s birthday. Cool.

We’ve been shopping for a few touches – Jacquie touches – for our new place. In Tesco I notice up by the cash, with all of those little “impulse buy” things that are always there, are a wide selection of condoms. Right there beside the Fisherman’s Friend cough drops.

Sometimes the movie channel has English movies with English subtitles. Some of the subtitles are great – in the newest Star Wars the Jedi Council translated as the Cheddar Council. And there’s “the ways of the force” = “the rest of the fall” and “a pawn” = “upon”. It would be fun to sit and watch with the sound off.

Well, probably to the complete surprise of no one, now that Jacquie is here finding time to write this is becoming more difficult. To catch up on the things a don’t already forget:

-Friday, two days late, we finally selected and ordered the oil paintings that are to be Jacquie’s birthday present. There is for the most part no original design or art here, but they are amazing copy artists. Book after book of artwork at the place we went – some that Jacquie has and can order from – that we simply picked from, then choose a size and come back 2-3 days later for your oil painting – a near perfect copy from a photo in a book.

-also Friday, also two days late, we finally had her birthday dinner out in the incredibly romantic Fishermans Village. The nicest restaurant we have ever been in anywhere, and it’s a few miles up the road from where we live on a little island. I bit expensive, but the wine actually cost more than the food.

-my trip to Singapore on the weekend changed fairly last minute to be a trip to Phuket. Another show running concurrently and the lawyer doing it couldn’t at the last minute. Phuket is beautiful, but two days sitting at a booth in a mall bit. I am anxious to go back – with Jacquie and on holiday, not to work. The properties there have all gone way beyond reality – 10 to 20 million US dollars is normal there. Playground of the rich and famous. It’s nice, but I’m not sure it’s THAT nice. It was the first place I’ve been in Thailand that I thought it could have been somewhere other than Thailand. Westernized. The only clue was the couples in the mall where the Thai wife might be with her husband, or that might be her white grandfather.

-Jacquie is a bit terrified of driving here – just watching from the passenger side is scary enough for her. Driving on the left side is of course troubling, but in no small measure the fact that the new vehicle is a large four door truck that she needs to climb into doesn’t help. Anyway, she did drive me to and back home from the airport on the weekend without incident, so she will get it. She needs to, because of course this is a huge transition for her which at times she is struggling with, and she absolutely needs some of her independence back.

We met a couple on the beach Monday here on holiday from Phuket with their three young children. He is from Singapore, she from Australia. The kids love the dog and Jacquie, and Jacquie is in heaven. We were over to the villa they are renting two doors down the beach for drinks Monday night, but I think Jacquie prefers their kids. She and her new playmates can on most days be found down on the beach, making sand castles and swimming. We had to explain to the youngest boy that it was only okay to ride Sami on the land, because in the water it would scare – or drown – the dog. (Actually, now the little boy has learned to just hang on to Sami’s collar, and it’s like a kiddy’s version of a dolphin ride) Today is Wednesday morning, and the dog has gone back upstairs to bed – he is toast.

I just found out those peoples last name – they are clients of my firm, and I helped out on their property purchase. Small world.

Kris is here today with a client, and they are meeting some investors – the client wants to find the best hotel on the island – when I mentioned one beautiful 5-star spa resort he said no, they want 7-star. Anybody out there ever heard of a 7-star resort? I haven’t. I’m guessing those people are basically hard to please.

There is a very basic difference here in the concept of cleanliness and bacteria. They don’t have the “5 second rule” – here it’s the five minute rule. I’m sure if I ask what the Thai word is for Salmonella, there is none. Yesterday Ja par-boiled a big hunk of pork, then left it out in the sun for a few hours to dry before cutting it up and finishing the cooking in our supper (it was by the way really delicious). The kitchen rag is pretty much multi purpose. If I’m going to keep eating the food, I think I must avoid writing any details on that topic. Sam is welcome at pretty much every restaurant we’ve been to. They always get him a bowl of water, and he lays at our feet.

The rain, that till now seems to have been miraculously missing us, has been hitting many parts of the country really hard. There is widespread flooding in Bangkok and in various places in the north. Some deaths, big problem. You can almost feel the weather changing daily. Everyone knows that the monsoons are still coming, they are just late.

Severe weather ...... something new to experience and write about.